Sehwag: “I did it my way”

I did it for the fans, but i did it my way!

Indian batsman Virender Sehwag has officially decided to hang up his boots from International cricket. The legendary Indian opener made the announcement on his 37th birthday via his official twitter account. His twitter message also stated that he also called off participating in the Indian Premier League in the future, though he would continue playing in the Ranji Trophy for Haryana until the end of the season.

Earlier this week, Sehwag had also made an official announcement that he would be taking part in the first ever Master Champions League (MCL), which is a T20 tournament to be played in UAE. The MCL will feature some of the games all time greats, but only the ones who will have retired from all three formats of International cricket before the tournament kicks off.

“God has been kind and I have done what I wanted to do, both on the field and in my life and I had decided sometime back that I will retire on my 37th birthday. So, while I spend the day with my family, I hereby announce my retirement from all forms of international cricket and the Indian Premier League.

Cricket has been my life and continues to be so. Playing for India was a memorable journey and I tried to make it more memorable for my team-mates and for the Indian cricket fans. I believe I was reasonably successful in doing so. For that, I wish to thank all my teammates over the years who were some of the greatest players of the game. I would like to thank all my captains, who believed in me and backed me to the hilt. I also thank our greatest partner, the Indian cricket fans for all the love, support and the memories.

I also want to thank everyone for all the cricketing advice given to me over the years and apologise for not accepting most of it! I had a reason for not following it: I did it my way!”

Sehwag’s name would certainly go down among the names of most fearless openers the game of cricket has ever seen. He is known among the pioneers of the mastering the art of batting with the new ball. Very few Indian batsmen in history have been as attacking and as aggressive as Virender Sehwag up the order. Indeed Sehwag always did it his way. He was a batsman who would never even hold back during the longest version of the game. In Tests, Sehwag scored at a strike rate of 80 plus!

Although he had been out of the International scene for almost 2 years, Virender Sehwag enjoyed one illustrious career, one he certainly would be proud of, while narrating to his grand kids. Sehwag played 104 Test matches, 251 ODIs and 19 T20 Internationals. He scored a collective 17000 runs in all 3 formats and also picked up 136 wickets with the ball. He also holds several other remarkable records to his name, which include the only batsman in history to score a triple hundred, more so score it two times! Sehwag was also part of India’s World Cup winning teams of the T20 World Cup in 2007 and the ODI World Cup in 2011.